Bio

What shapes a person? For me, it was a free-range childhood in rural Kentucky, with days spent working and playing outside and evenings buried in books. Then, it was leaving that comfortable place for the rigor and structure of academic science. And it was motherhood, which made me ask what mattered most.

Writing has always mattered to me. It has been a steady current through my life, from private journals to scientific papers to grant proposals. I left the world of academic research in 2011, but I didn’t want to leave behind the science, and there was no question that I would find a way to keep writing. At first, my blog, The Science of Mom, was my sole outlet, and then that grew into a book of the same name, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2015.

I discovered that writing stories about science was the best job I could imagine. It allowed me to keep learning, to talk with fascinating people, and to find satisfaction in clarifying complex, nuanced stories for readers. I’m hooked, and I’m happy to finally feel like I’ve found my place in the world.